True-Life Stories of Life After Brain Injuries

Since April of 1989, I have lived with a traumatic brain injury. You can read more about that here. Today I wanted to address some of the questions typed into search engines–like Google–which have brought up my blog.

Closed Head Injuries and Impulse Control

First of all, let me state that using terminology like that–closed versus open head injury–is now unnecessary. Twenty or thirty years ago, and before that, people assumed that a closed head-injury was less-severe than an open head-injury. The thought was that if something broke the skull and compromised the closed-system inside the head, the damage must be fore severe. However, in a closed head-injury, pressure builds up as a result of bleeding inside the head. If the skull is broken, it will let off the pressure and eliminate further damage to brain cells. Because of this, the terms, “Closed-head-injury” and “Open-head-injury” are seldom used.

That said, let’s address impulse control in head-injury survivors. The brain is comprised of parts or “lobes.” Breaking it down into its simplest form, the frontal lobes control things like higher-thinking and decision-making. If the frontal lobes are damaged, often the survivor may be a bit hasty in making decisions or hap-hazard when controlling impulses. The impulse to grab something at an inappropriate time may not be stymied by the frontal lobes. Check out this post from September of ’09 to learn more.

Just because your loved one grabs a nurse’s boob when she’s in a compromised position, it doesn’t mean he’s leaving you for her. He just saw it and thought, “Oh, I like that!” and without thinking about the consequences of his actions, he’s already got a handful. Ooops!

Brain Injury and Alcohol

Since I can remember, I had people telling me the dangers of drinking with a head injury. Even though I didn’t really have the desire to drink before my wreck, the steadfastness about not imbibing alcohol seemed to be missing after my injury. Yes, I have ingested copious amounts of beer, hard liquor, and wine–and once a friend made jello-shots, but I can only tell you as one person who’s been there, it ain’t all that glamorous. Headaches, body aches, not knowing what you’ve done, well, you get the point.

The best way to approach alcohol is simply to abstain. Like a bicycle without a front set of brakes, with a head injury, things are likely to spiral out of control with alcohol. If you have hard time making decisions, it will get slower with alcohol added to the mix. For me, I could never really hold my liquor for this reason: one can of beer, a glass of wine, or a mixed drink to me, would be like two to someone without a traumatic brain injury (TBI).

So when it got to be around 8:30, I was ready to call it a night. I overhear people say, “Let’s get there about 9:30 or 10.” Ha! I would be half-way to visiting Mr. Sandman if I waited ’til then!

Stroke and Swearing

A friend of mine with whom I connected on Facebook after nearly 20 years since high school said that ever since her dad had a stroke he’s been dropping the F-bomb in front of her kids–which mortified her! Over the years I have spent in and out of neurorehabilitation institutes, I have heard more foul language than a Marine during “Hell-Week.” It happens.

Often the aneurysm, stroke, or traumatic brain injury survivor cannot do what he had been able to only days, weeks or hours earlier. Suddenly he may have trouble expressing himself verbally, concentrating on mid-level tasks, or remembering what was said 10 minutes ago. The last bastion for him is to choose language to express his displeasure with his situation. I’m not saying it’s okay to be a foul-mouthed, F-Bomb dropping survivor, but if it does happen to someone you love, know that he will probably regret his word-choice soon.

I hope this post provides you insights into the injured brain–from the survivor’s point-of-view. If there is anything I can do to help you in this long road to recovery, let me know.